Coach Wink ‘Suspicious’ That Comissions May Have Let Overweight Fighters Off The Hook

Coach Mike Winkeljohn will be one of the main men in Holly Holm’s corner when she faces Cris Cyborg at UFC 219 for the UFC women’s’ featherweight title and he’s confident that Holm will be crowned a champion again before 2018.

Cris Cyborg’s difficulties making weight at 140-pounds were well documented, but when it comes to hitting 145-pounds for the bout on Dec. 30, Winkeljohn isn’t at all concerned about the Brazilian missing weight. While he doesn’t think it will come to it, Winkeljohn outlined the sort of punishments he would like to see put in place for fighters who don’t hit the mark.

“Well, you know what, Cris, I’d assume she’s always had to cut a lot of weight to get there and stuff, and there’s always been people looking the other way,” Winkeljohn told Submission Radio. “You know, I personally think that sometimes fighters don’t make, and in this case she’s got to make weight cause it’s a world title fight. But if she wasn’t gonna make weight, there’s no way I’d take the fight unless the judges gave us a point on everybody’s scorecard.

“You know, the first round you just lost a point and lost penalty moneywise, it’s just one of those situations. But with that being said, I think Cris will make weight. She has to, it’s a world title fight.

“I think she’ll have a little bit more size than Holly that way, but you’ve got to be careful what you wish for, depends on how long the fight lasts.”

Winkeljohn went onto explain that he thinks the promoter has a responsibility to think about the best interest of the fighter that does make weight. He went onto point out the fact that a lot of the time, it’s the fighter who does hit the mark that enters the cage at a disadvantage,

“I only hope and pray that she makes weight because Holly wants to win that world title, it’s as simple as that,” Winkeljohn said. “But I would like to see some kind of policy like that across the board for MMA fighters, because what happens is the fighter, he’s trained his ass off and he wants to fight, and so he has the tendency to take the fight and take a little bit of money, but that doesn’t really matter, it’s about the win.

“How many times has that happened where they’ve lost the fight to the guy that didn’t make the weight. There’s something wrong with that scenario and the pressure that’s put on the person to take the fight by the promoter because you want to stay in good with the promoter. The promoter doesn’t really care about the fighter, so I think it’s up to the commission to penalize the person who didn’t make weight.

“You’re a man and you signed a contract, perform.”

When asked if he thinks that commissions have let UFC fighters off the hook when over the weight limit, Winkeljohn didn’t hold back.